Every Angle

Subconsciously I think we avoid the people that we know won’t agree with us or who will tell us the things we don’t want to hear. I think we even act like we aren’t ignoring or avoiding them just to make ourselves feel better about it all. We send a quick bs text or pretend like we’re sad or hurt that they haven’t reached out to us. The reality though, is that we are doing things that we know might not be the best thing to do and the people that really love us will call us out on it. If we don’t want to hear it, we don’t always mean to, but we ignore it. Ignore them. The ones we really need the most.
I’m guilty of this.
Shortly after my ex-husband and I split up, I was seeing someone and all the people in my life that loved me and wanted what was best for me told me not to. They told me to give myself some time and let my head clear all the way before starting something new. I didn’t listen. I used the “new guy” as a distraction. It was my way of not dealing with my feeling and my trauma, it was how I coped. I stopped answering the phone and I cut off communication with people that loved me because I didn’t want to hear anymore that what I was doing was unhealthy. Instead I cried to the people that would listen about how they didn’t care about me and they weren’t reaching out to me; not calling me, not texting me…
Boohoo, poor me.
Fast forward some time and I know now that I did that.
Guilty.
I can admit that they were right and I was just in denial. I wasn’t ready to cope, to deal or to admit that my life had just fallen apart. I didn’t want anyone to tell me that I needed to deal with it either. I needed to deal with it, but I wasn’t really ready to admit to that.
Complete denial.
I thought that I was in control and that what I was doing was OK but what I really needed was for someone to call me out. To make me realize I was being so ridiculously stupid. A few tried. I have to give them the credit for that.
I know now that I just wasn’t ready. I had to go through the motions myself. I had to fail myself. I had to fall down on my knees and hit my lowest low before I could realize that I needed to handle things differently.
The thing is that when you are going through a life changing event. In my case a life changing trauma; you have moments where you feel like you need to stay distracted or you need to get back to the safety blanket that you lost in order to be happy. Some people drink a lot more or start doing some kind of drug to not have to deal with reality. Some people sleep with people to try and feel the love they are missing or sabotage relationships because they simply cannot handle seeing their lover, their partner with someone new. Instead of dealing with these feelings, these emotions, they self-destruct without even realizing they’re doing it. If you weren’t happy, if you were sad or angry or you felt used or whatever the case may have been; there was a reason you ended it. There was a reason you said you couldn’t do it anymore. Nothing is harder that the aftermath of a break up. Especially a breakup that was years, involved kids, marriage or proposals, family, a home… It is one of the most difficult and painful things a person can go through.
Most people I know aren’t ready to cope, to look the ugly reality of what has just happened in the eye. Instead when the kids are gone, you drink, party or whatever you need to do to just simply get through it. At some point though, at some point you have to stop. You have to stop being selfish, because thats what you’re doing when you don’t use the time to get better, to be better. You have to realize that you can’t keep torturing yourself. You can’t save everyone or fix everything alone and you definitely shouldn’t compromise yourself to attempt it either.
In my case, when I stopped and finally said I am going to deal with this now; I had spent so much time with my head up the “new guys” rear end, that it was basically like I lost my husband the day before all over again. All that time, all that ignorance, I hadn’t dealt with what had really happened. And those people that I pushed away, the ones that wanted me to do things right, that saw from the outside in that I wasn’t coping with my trauma… They were hurt, they were upset that I put so much effort in turning my anger and my resentment on them instead of focusing on myself. In the process of trying to make myself happy, aka stay in denial, I hurt the people that wanted to love me and support me through it all. Now I needed to fix so much more than if I just would have stopped, taken a few deep breaths and really realized what I was doing.
The pain and the hurt I thought I wouldn’t survive, I survived. My kids survived. They know how strong their Mom is. I didn’t go though all of that to keep things to myself and to watch people I love struggle through the same things. Maybe the way we think needs to change some. Maybe we need to realize that the people we wanted to support us, that love us, wouldn’t be doing or saying things out of spite but because they know firsthand exactly how it feels and they know we need that support system. We need it even more when we are trying to cut it off than when we just wanted it to be there. The people that love us, love us, no matter what. They might not agree with us and if they really love you, they will tell you they don’t agree. Being complacent and lying to your face isn’t loving you. Love means making you think about things you might not want to think about. In the long run, I, you, all of us, should be thankful that we have people who care enough to show us how we look from every angle.
Maybe we need to realize that even though it’s our life, it isn’t just about us…